190 DAVIS 



tive voice in the making of the laws by which it is governed. 

 Nevertheless, the District of Columbia is the best governed com- 

 munity of its day and generation. 



The reason of this presents the most interesting question pos- 

 sible to the student of sociology, and makes that question the 

 most difficult possible of apprehension by the superficial ob- 

 server : a question not softened in its difficulties by the fact that 

 the District has come to be what it is in the face of executive 

 and judicial notice of its anomaly in the early days of its history. 

 In his second annual message to Congress in 1818, President 

 Monroe spoke as follows : 



The situation of this District, it is thought, requires the atten- 

 tion of Congress. By the Constitution, the power of legislation 

 is exclusively vested in the Congress of the United States. In 

 the exercise of this power, in which the people have no partici- 

 pation. Congress legislate in all cases directly on the local con- 

 cerns of the District. As this is a departure, for a special 

 purpose, from the general principles of our system, it may merit 

 consideration whether an arrangement better adapted to the 

 principles of our Government and to the particular interests of 

 the people may not be devised which will neither infringe the 

 Constitution nor affect the object which the provision in question 

 was intended to secure. 



And in 1820, in the case of Loughborough v. Blake (5 

 Wheaton, 317, 323-5), the Supreme Court of the United States 

 which had been appealed to to declare, in effect, that the govern 

 ment of the District of Columbia, in that it involved taxation 

 without representation, was contrary to the spirit of our institu- 

 tions, disposed of the matter in these words : 



If, then, the language of the Constitution be construed to 

 comprehend the Territories and District of Columbia, as well as 

 the States, that language confers on Congress the power of tax- 

 ing the District and Territories as well as the States. If the 

 general language of the Constitution should be confined to the 

 States, still the i6th paragraph of the 8th section [of Article i], 

 gives to Congress the power of exercising " exclusive legislation 

 in all cases whatsoever within this District." 



On the extent of these terms, according to the common under- 

 standing of mankind, there can be no difference of opinion ; 

 but it is contended that they must be limited by that great prin- 

 ciple which was asserted in our Revolution that representation 

 is inseparable from taxation. 



